Ground Water Board officers sore

By Our Staff Correspondent

JAIPUR, AUG. 12. Officers of the Central Ground Water Board across the country are discontented with the lack of promotional avenues and the Board's failure to implement the Flexible Complementing Scheme (FCS) of promotions for the Group `B' scientists despite the instructions of the Department of Science and Technology to this effect.

The Board has also not implemented the judgments of the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT) and various High Courts directing for timely promotions on one pretext or the other. There are over 120 cases currently pending in various courts on the promotion issue, which shows the extent of dissatisfaction among the scientists working with the Board.

The All India Central Ground Water Board Officers' Association has decided to observe August 31 as the All India Demands Day to press for inclusion of all Group `B' scientific officers in the FCS and promotion to all with eight years' service to the post of Scientist `C' in accordance with the CAT's favourable judgments.

The Association's general secretary, Dr. M. N. Khan, told TheHindu here today that the Board's refusal to give promotions in time had not only led to denial of justice to the deserving officers but also fomented unnecessary litigation. ``Despite favourable judgments, the Board does not extend the benefit of promotion until the petitioner launches the contempt of court proceedings,'' he pointed out.

The Association will also raise the demands for extension of FCS to all the engineers, declaration of results of the offices interviewed for Scientist `D', implementation of the Rangaya Naidu Committee's recommendations, and declaration of the Board as an attached office in order to strengthen it.

The scientists and engineers working with the Board are especially peeved at its ``obstinate'' stance of not extending the benefit of the court verdicts to the persons similarly circumstanced until they are constrained to move the CAT. This attitude invariably leads to litigation, causing wastage of time and public money.

In one of its judgments, the CAT - while directing the Union of India to pay cost of litigation for refusal to extend the benefit of a judgment to a similarly placed person - had expressed its displeasure over this tendency and observed that the Government was ``indirectly fomenting unnecessary litigation and wasting public money, making it a prestige issue.''

Dr. Khan - a hydrogeologist working in the Board's Regional Office for Rajasthan here - said the Board's refusal to give promotion due to the officers was in gross violation of the provisions laid down in the recruitment rules. ``It is unfortunate that when a water conservation activist, Mr. Rajendra Singh, is being honoured with the Magsaysay Award, his counterparts in a Government organisation are being denied their legitimate right,'' he commented.

Most of the Group `B' scientific officers in the Board are recruited through the Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) and possess post-graduate qualifications. As they are the mainstay of the organisation and most of the field work is done by them, they fulfil the basic conditions for inclusion in the FCS.

Though the Department of Science and Technology had extended the FCS to Group `B' scientific officers in May 1986, the Union Ministry of Water Resources, which governs the Board, extended the FCS benefits to only the Group `A' officers and excluded the Group `B' from its purview. Later, the Ministry admitted in a court that the S&T Department's order was not in its knowledge at the time of extending FCS to the Group `A' officers.

However, instead of rectifying the mistake by subsequently including the Group `B' scientists in FCS, the Board made all attempts to reject the case, according to the Association. The Ministry has now taken the stand that the FCS benefit for Groups `B' officers has been withdrawn by the Fifth Pay Commission's recommendations and cannot be extended to them.

Significantly, the scientists and engineers working with the Board are even prepared to get the FCS benefit on a ``notional basis'' so that there is no financial burden on the Government by way of payment of arrears.

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Section  : Other States
Previous : One-upmanship on CNG issue